


Another Storm to Ride

by NorthwesternInsanity



Series: Ridin the Storm Out [2]
Category: Music RPF, REO Speedwagon
Genre: Angst, Drama, Drunkenness, Flashback, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Ridin the Storm Out (song), Thunderstorms, Trance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 10:26:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15022601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: When Neal Doughty returned from the Nine Lives tour, he found himself falling blindly into a storm he hardly expected, leaving Bruce Hall to form a rescue mission with the rest of the band. A breakdown takes Bruce back to have a look on another more infamous storm with his bandmates as they hold together in support of their keyboardist.





	Another Storm to Ride

Bruce Hall woke up with a start.

Sitting up in bed, he looked around the room. He couldn't figure out what had woken him up -if anything in particular had, but he had the gut feeling that something wasn't right.

A clap of thunder rang out outside, and he heard the trees blowing around. No rain yet, though it was forecasted and on the way for sure.

Maybe that had done it? Bruce stayed sitting up for a moment, looking around in the dark and listening to the wind outside.

No, that wasn't it. It wasn't enough knowing what was outside to settle the feeling in his gut, and while he had his fears and would admit to them with no shame, Bruce Hall was _not_ afraid of thunderstorms in any world.

Picking up the flashlight from beside his bed, he set off about the house. He didn't smell smoke. A trot downstairs and into the basement to peak at the breaker box confirmed it wasn't having problems. He didn't have anything in the washing machine, and it wasn't flooded, nor was anything flooded in the bathroom when he checked it.

He had left the window over the kitchen sink unlocked -he liked to open it when he cooked, and it was high enough off the ground where it wasn't an easy entry. But maybe... Had someone gotten in the house? It didn't look like it.

Bruce locked the window just for internal security before going to look around upstairs. Looking downstairs was easy; upstairs he had to make sure he didn't wake up Neal Doughty. Neal was a light sleeper; it would be a miracle if he he hadn't woken him up leaving his room. 

_Damn it, I should have thought to be quiet,_ Bruce realized.

He'd taken Neal into his house a couple of nights ago. Coming back from tour to go straight back in the studio two weeks ago had already gone over with big trouble -the first of it coming with the keyboardist's wife up and leaving him the moment he'd gotten home, having already packed up before he'd gotten there. No warning, no nothing. Whether he was already in full heartbreak, or still stunned into shock, nobody could tell with Neal's reserved exterior. 

Regardless of which was true, he was struggling. Kevin arrived to the studio early and caught him with a sleeping bag in the studio a few mornings prior, camping out overnight because he hadn't wanted to go home to his empty house. And priding himself on the appearance of the band, Kevin Cronin saw the sleeping bag on the studio floor, and he pitched a fit. That had led to a rough day with Neal in a dark mood -grumpy and swearing, and it only continued for the days after. True worry for Neal, and for the peace between them at that point had led to the current arrangement.

Whether he'd already woken Neal or not, Bruce opened his door, deciding that if he hadn't, he needed to wake him up now before he went digging through things so that he didn't scare him awake.

But as the door swung open to reveal a soft moan cutting across the room and labored wheezing, then the outline of Neal's arms across his chest in awkward positions and trembling, Bruce knew he'd found his problem.

"Neal!"

He darted across the room, certain Neal was having a seizure. When he got there, he wasn't sure if the reality was better or worse with him being conscious.

"H-h-help -me," Neal stuttered through choppy, wheezing gasps. His body wasn't rigid upon closer look, but rather, his limbs had gone slack and uncoordinated, shaking so hard he couldn't push himself up into a sitting position, try as he might.

"Whoa, Neal, what's happening?"

"C-can't b-breathe!" Neal continued to struggle, terror flashing through his eyes.

"Alright." Bruce tried to keep the tone of his voice calm to keep Neal from panicking worse. "Hey, I'm gonna take care of you. You need to sit up?"

There was no response but a hard, labored exhale, so Bruce tried to grab Neal by the arms and pull him up to a sitting position. He ended up having to sit down on the bed and pull him up in a hug from how slack and heavy he was.

The cold, limp tone to his arms combined with the forceful shaking, and how he watched Neal's eyes cross and his head loll as he came up sent a lightening bolt through Bruce's chest as One flashed simultaneously outside, and soon he was shaking too.

"Neal," Bruce panted. "Neal, are you still with me?" He hugged the trembling keyboardist to himself, afraid that he'd fall back, slam on the pillow, and hurt himself if he let go for one second.

"Talk to me if you're awake, Neal."

Neal took labored, wheezing breaths.

"B-Bruce," he choked in as vulnerable a voice as Bruce had ever heard from him. "What's h-h-happen-in' t-to me?"

"I got the same question for you myself, Neal," Bruce quipped, feeling the shaking grow even worse against himself, even as Neal's body grew slacker. "You got me pretty scared right about now. Are you breathing any better?"

"I think..." Neal trailed off, as something more concerning took hold.

"What's the matter?"

"I c-can't see, Bruce."

"You can't _see?_ "

"E'vrythin's spinnin," Neal slurred between heavier gasps. "Is'all blurred t'gether."

"Alright." Bruce pulled Neal off his chest and he cupped his hand under the keyboardist's chin, seeing the far off, uncoordinated movement of his eyes. "Neal, I'm gonna lay you down, and I'm gonna call the fire department."

"Please, no! N-no! No, no, no...!" Neal's shaking grew worse, and he attempted to thrash his legs about.

"Okay, okay! -I haven't called yet; calm down. Why can't I call them?"

"I d-don't want'em. Please, no, no, no... Get m-me h-h-help!"

"I was going to call them for help; I can't get you help if I can't call for it."

"Call Gary... and Alan and Kevin. W-wanna see'em."

"Neal, they're not gonna be able to give you help if you need medical attention."

"I don't care," Neal cried out. "I want Gary 'n A-Alan, 'n Kevin! H-help!"

"Okay, give me a second. I'll get them." Bruce started to lower Neal down to the pillow, and he felt the shockwave through his body before the panicked death grip that followed.

"You gotta let go a second so I can get the phone, okay? It's not even that far from the bed; I just can't reach it from here. I promise, I'm not going to call 911 if you don't want me to."

The only response he got was a loosening of the stronghold. With a struggle, Bruce pulled the phone from the dresser top and stretching the cord from the wall to the phone base as far as it would go, he managed to balance it on the nightstand. Settling back on the bed, he put one hand on Neal's, and stretched the phone cord with his other as he waited what felt like an eternity of rings.

_Come on, Cronin, wake up..._ With the wind and thunder outside on his side of town, Bruce hoped that the lines weren't going down at Kevin's house.

"H-hello?" 

"Kevin," Bruce started, unsure how to describe what was going on without frightening everyone else. "We've got a problem out here. We've got a problem, and I'm not sure what's gonna happen, but we gotta figure out something. Neal's... he's just not doing well. We gotta try and help him. Right now."

"What, you don't think he's-? That he's-?" Kevin stopped, unable to spit it out. Bruce took pity on him, not wanting to say it either.

"Kevin, I don't know what wrong with him, but he's on the bed. He woke up, and he's just shaking terrible. Can't stop. I don't know what's going on, but he's too weak to sit up and practically crying for you all and telling me not to call the fire department."

Kevin's voice was muffled, and Bruce could picture him sucking his lip in nervously. "So, what are we gonna do? Do you need me to come down there? I just gotta throw something on, and I can get there right quick."

"I'm gonna call Alan. I need you to go get Gary, okay? Call Gary. Tell him to get himself ready while you're headed his way. But don't you go telling him what's going on until he's in your car and you all are on the way here with the doors locked. Don't question it, just get on it now. You know he was probably out and about earlier tonight drinking; he doesn't need to be driving himself here, and if he panics, he'll jump in his car and you won't be able to stop him."

"Got it, Bruce-ster. I'm calling him now." The line went dead.

Bruce looked down to Neal, hearing his panting over the dial tone. He was still shaking impossibly hard.

"Kevin's coming. He's on his way and getting Gary right now."

It seemed that Neal had gone into a trance; Bruce couldn't get a response from him. He appeared calmer, but his eyes were still glazed over, and with all his symptoms present, it was far worse in Bruce's mind. As Neal further shut down, he had no way of telling if he was simply settling down, passing out harmlessly, or fading from life.

He pulled Neal back into a sitting position, hugging him tight against his body with one arm as he tried to pull the phone back over again with his other.

Alan picked up faster, spending a night up late. He had further to travel, but already being up and dressed, he was ready to jump in the car as soon as he hung up. The hard part for him was navigating the weather.

"It's throwing down rain so bad where I am I can hardly see outside, but I'll try my darndest," he promised.

It couldn't have been in better timing when Bruce got off the phone, because Neal came out of his trance at that time. Bruce suspected he'd passed out without closing his eyes when he first moved, but when he came back in consciousness, he was no longer whimpering, but outright screaming and thrashing about.

"Neal! Shhhh! I'm right here. Kevin's on his way..." Bruce kept droning inanities until Neal snapped out of his panic, keeping a strong hold so that he couldn't hurt himself. 

"Make it g-go away!" Neal pleaded as Bruce lowered him back to the pillow finally.

Neal Doughty. The one of them who was the most calm, collected, and hardly cracked a smile or frown out of his blank, ever so slightly dour expression -now writhing on the bed in agony. He was only human, but Bruce couldn't help but think how much Neal's current panic stemmed from whatever was going on within him, and how much of it was coming from the fear of losing all external control.

"I'm trying, Neal. I'm gonna do what I can; I'm just as confused as to what's going on as you are. But it's nothing to be ashamed of."

A couple of minutes later, Bruce had a pack of ice on Neal's forehead and cool, damp towels around his upper body, trying to soothe him. His hands and feet were cold, but he was running a fever and sweating, complaining of heat when Bruce asked, so hoping that it wasn't a full shock, he opted to cool Neal off and do everything he could to make him comfortable.

"W-want Gary an'Alan, an'Kevin..."

"They're coming, Neal; they're coming." _Please get here soon,_ Bruce pleaded internally.

"Alan's coming. Kevin and Gary will be here any minute."

They were the first to arrive, the latter visibly drunk as Bruce feared he would be. He walked in a determined saunter ahead of Kevin, who had followed slow with dreading uncertainty of what awaited him on the other side of the door.

It had started raining substantially by the time they arrived, and Bruce came to open the door with towels in hand, seeing as they stepped up on the porch with rainwater dripping from the ends of their hair. Kevin took his towel, as well as a moment in the front room to shake off the elements, but Gary blew past Bruce, and Bruce had to run up the stairs to get ahead of him.

Neal still lay flat on his back when Gary entered the room. Having begun to shiver after a time, Bruce had replaced his towels with soft blankets wrapped around him, and left him only with the ice pack on his head to continue working at his elevated temperature. He was still shaking, and when he saw Gary, he tried to sit up, only to have his eyes cross and to fall right back down against the pillows.

"P-please," he gasped. "H-help me."

Bruce watched from the corner, still holding Gary's towel and helpless to do anything more for Neal. Gary turned to face him, a tormented expression crossing his features and tears streaking his cheeks. Poor Gary. Bruce couldn't help but feel bad knowing his reaction would be something of the sort -he was perpetually terrified that everyone he cared about would leave him and he got so emotional whenever someone was in distress.

But there was no time for Bruce to consider how he might comfort him, as Neal lolled back and began to thrash about frantically again.

"Uh-oh." He walked up to Neal's side and began shushing him.

Gary looked back to Neal and broke out in loud, undignified, drunken sobbing.

Having finally made his way from downstairs, Kevin ran forward into the room at that moment and took him in his arms to quiet him. He looked between Bruce, the despondent Gary he held, and the state that Neal was in.

"Oh, shit," he murmured, for once lost for words.

"Alan's on his way," Bruce assured, meaning it within his monologue of comforts to Neal, but unsure who he was really talking to as the situation struck Gary and Kevin, leaving them in a tense silence past Neal's whimpering and Gary's sobbing for the next few minutes.

The door was left unlocked downstairs for Alan, and Kevin was prepared to run downstairs and get it if Alan was unaware, making the decision when Gary declared he wasn't going anywhere from Neal's side. He was now subdued and occupied with holding Neal's trembling, icy hands, trying to rub them and work off the shock. Once he was distracted enough to not shake it off, Kevin and Bruce had put a towel around his shoulders to protect him from his wet hair, which had already dripped and soaked through his shirt.

Low thunder rolled through the uneasy quiet that had settled over them. It was followed by a gust of wind that was almost enough to drown out the thump outside. Almost.

"That's a car door. It's Alan." Kevin ran down to stand on the stairs, halfway between upstairs and downstairs, holding a towel.

The door burst open, and Alan came in, dripping a trail of water from the bottom of his knee-length raincoat, and from an umbrella that he was attempting to fold shut after it had been ripped inside out unceremoniously by the wind.

"One second! I gotta get out of this gear; the storm was where I was coming from, and it's like a washing machine of hell."

"Gary, calm down." Bruce's low warning was still cutting in the quiet of the house, signaling beyond the reaches of the bedroom that things were going out of the unsteady state of control they'd reached.

Gary wailed. "Kevin, he's hyperventilating again!"

Frustrated, Alan gave up and stuffed his damaged umbrella into the stand so it couldn't spring open, then began stripping out of his coat and boots as best as he could without slinging water everywhere. "Kevin, get back upstairs with them. I'll be up there in a second."

Kevin tossed the towel over his head and skipped up two steps at a time, forcing his way back up to the bedside. When he got there, he looped his arms around Gary and pulled him back.

"Gary, get off of him for awhile and give him space to breathe."

"Guys, we gotta do something different than what we're doing with just the ice and the blankets, because it's obviously not doing enough," said Bruce from the doorway of the bedroom.

"What are we gonna do?" Gary was distraught. "Neal, you've gotta be okay, man. You have too! You can't leave us!"

"Don't worry him over that right now," Bruce warned. "He's not okay, and he's got a right to not be okay. We have to help him get to okay again.

"Well, nothing like this has ever happened to one of us before." Kevin leaned against the bedside. "What do we do?"

Alan came running through the doorway at that moment. He looked almost no different than he did following a show -damp hair and towel slung around his neck. But rather than being ready for a party, he was serious now.

"Guys, step back; _please!_ " He shoved past Gary and Bruce, who stepped apart. When Kevin didn't step aside, he yanked him aside. Kevin's slim frame didn't stand a chance against the strength of a drummer's arm, and with his overzealous motion, Alan nearly knocked him over.

_"Move!"_

"Ouch! Gratzer, why'd you gotta do that for-?"

"Quiet, Kevin! Everyone, quiet! _One!twothreefourone!twothree..."_ Alan had his hand on Neal's chest and he was counting in a whisper so fast his mouth could hardly keep up.

"...His heart is going way too fast; that's around 180." Alan put his hands on the bed and tapped out a fast beat alternating hands to emphasize just how fast.

Kevin's jaw hit the floor. "I'm calling 911."

"No... nonononono..." Neal moaned.

"No, Kevin," warned Alan.

"We gotta call for medics. I-if he's that bad off-"

Bruce shot a stinger look. "Kevin, he said no."

"B-but if he's havin' a heart attack, a-and if we don't..." Kevin lay his hand on the phone on the nightstand.

"Kevin, no!" shouted Alan. _"No!"_

"The reason I asked all of you guys here is that he asked for you all and refused anyone else. We have to help him; he's just gonna freak out worse if we get an ambulance sent here." Bruce reached down and unplugged the phone jack, rendering it useless to even try. "He's already going into shock and scared enough; goddammit, do what he asks us to do if it's the only thing we do for him! Okay?"

"Guys, please stop yelling," Gary begged as Neal began thrashing about again. _"Please!"_

"M-make s-stop; m-make-s-stop; m-make'stop..." Neal moaned incoherently.

Kevin drew his hand back from the phone, turned around, and stood wilting in the doorway.

"What are we supposed to do if we don't know how to help him and we can't call for someone who can?"

"We're gonna be here with him and stick together," said Bruce. "All of us are here now like he wanted, and we gotta help him."

Alan raised his eyebrows and looked to Kevin as he saw Neal's thrashing subside. "That's gotta ring a bell to something you ramble about onstage quite often, Kev."

"I guess it does."

Bruce winced then as thunder rolled outside and wind blew so tree branches rustled together, and the tip of one longer branch scratched against the house exterior on his wall. _Oh, don't do that. Please, don't do that. Flashing lightening isn't going to help him..._

Rain began pattering harder on the windowsill with the pattern of windblown sheets. Kevin turned to stare out the window defeatedly.

"Well, now it's _really_ storming outside."

Alan rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that chased me from where I came from."

"Gary," Neal whimpered. "Iszit still snowin' outside?"

"Yes," said Gary, climbing back up on the bed and stroking Neal's hair. "It is snowing, Neal. Snowin' but good."

_No, it's not,_ Bruce mouthed, shooting Gary a look of confusion, but he held up his index finger. Kevin's eyes lit up, and Alan nodded for Bruce to play along.

"S-so cold," Neal murmured, still shaking. "How bad is it? Are we in trouble?"

"The snow's piled up a foot over the bottom of the front door," Kevin said, awestruck. "And let me tell you, you can open the window and look out, but except for when the clouds break in the right place and you catch the moon, you can't see a thing out there. We're in some pretty big trouble alright."

"We stuck here, then?"

"I'd say so," Bruce muttered, playing along as best as he could. He realized what they were playing along to, even though he hadn't been there at the time. Neal was in a trance for certain this time, not here, but in Colorado -and they were going there with him to keep him safe through that night.

"We could try to leave, but we'd be crazy to considering it would take sheer dumb luck to get down from here alive," Alan remarked. His voice turned biting and dark. "Though let me tell ya, it might kill us all staying in here with Kevin complaining about how he didn't get to record that ballad he wanted on the album and threatening to leave. Gary's gonna blow a fuse if he doesn't stop soon."

Kevin pouted with his hands on his hips. "Really, Alan?" By the dramatic expression he took to it, Bruce couldn't tell if he was reimagining the past or if he really meant it.

"Kevin, that's enough," Gary scolded, huffing and also putting the hand on the hip. "We've got more important things to worry about right now. We just pulled Neal in from outside after he got stuck out there trying to get something from the car, okay? We're all cold, and he's near frozen to death. Someone should've gone with him to keep him from falling through the snow and getting buried under the surface -he's lucky we found him and got him out alive!"

Bruce frowned, reaching over to check that Neal's temperature was staying within a normal range. A hand to his neck and sides confirmed his core body temperature had gone down to normal, and they could safely focus on warming his extremities up. He pulled the ice bag off Neal's head and pulled the tail of one of the blankets up around where it had been. Kevin flashed him a cheeky grin and thumbs up.

"We gotcha, Neal. You see, we're just a little flustered right now, because I don't know if you know, but Gary and I are a little cold right now too. And whether anyone else is or not, and if they'll admit it is another thing... but I think in a situation like this, you've absolutely got to tell the truth, and the truth is, I'm scared right now by all this shit outside," Kevin rambled. The way he forced it out as he would rambling onstage made it seem as though he really was shivering. "And we all gotta accept that, because sometimes shit just happens, and you just gotta do what you gotta do to roll with it, even if it means being a little scared."

"Kev, you got your hairdryer?" Alan asked.

"Yeah, do you think we have enough power on the generator?" Bruce ran out of the room for his own hairdryer at Kevin's response.

"I don't think we can keep it going very long, but it'll help us get going with warming up." Alan shrugged. "They say if your hair's wet, your temperature is already lower. It's worth a try."

Bruce plugged in the hairdryer and aimed the it from a foot back at Neal's hair where the ice pack had been and where condensation had soaked through his locks. Gary and Kevin piled in in either side of Neal, as if trying to catch the side-stream of the warm air current. Bruce caught some side-stream too and found himself shivering and wanting to draw nearer the others and the warmth even though it wasn't cold in the house. Was it possible to go into a trance like this?

"We're all scared right now," Gary spoke just above the soothing white noise, at first continuing Kevin's ramble, but quickly losing his track and rising in volume. "That's what's important right now; because I don't feel like going on and on however long we're stuck here on what's going on the next album, or whether Alan and I should call up Mike Murphy since he told us he'd be up for trying if things didn't work and you keep saying how you're gonna leave, okay? I don't want to talk about it!"

Bruce wasn't sure whether Gary was emotional over what was happening now, or if he'd truly been that emotional over Kevin briefly leaving the band, but he reached out and placed his free hand on Gary's arm as the guitarist broke into tears over Neal again. There was no mistaking it as part of any act.

"Gary." Kevin stared at him like a deer into headlights.

Gary put his arms around Neal, holding on tight and burying his face in the blankets surrounding him. Sobering up, he stayed quiet, and his shoulders hitched a couple of times as he choked back his sobs this time.

Neal's eyes were closed against the warm air, and he was still shaking, but his breathing had settled and the color was returning to his face as Gary held on tight with the hairdryer cutting a warm band across the rest of the room. With hope of calming both down, Bruce swept the dryer back and forth, trying to catch the damp ends of Gary's hair more and more as he passed back to Neal.

_I don't know what really happened, since obviously it wasn't this, but fuck, this is gonna break my heart,_ he thought. _We argue over petty things even when we love each other this much... and why?_

"Gary, I..." Kevin's voice broke. "Alan, do you think I should take him home?"

Alan put his arms around Kevin. "He's just scared and might not be feeling too well if he's coming sober. He'll be alright."

"I just want everyone to be here together," Gary wept.

Neal whimpered.

"It's okay," Alan soothed, sliding one hand down to stroke Gary's back.

"Gary, make sure you're not smothering him," Bruce hissed, nudging the guitarist.

"He's breathing alright now," whispered Alan. "Thank goodness."

"Gary, I'm here," said Kevin, putting himself up against Gary and Neal. He poked the ends of Gary's curls, taking the hairdryer from Bruce to help with drying him and Neal off and sneaking an intermittent gust of warm air on his own damp hair. "Look, I'm here, see?"

Gary drew in a shaking breath, trying to calm down. Quiet settled for awhile, with only the gentle white noise of the hairdryer and a rumble in the distance. Neal went back into somewhat of a trance, shaking and otherwise silent.

Just as everything seemed to be settling down, thunder boomed so hard it shook the house, startling everyone into flinching and aggravating Neal's shaking. The lights flickered, and the white noise of the hairdryer hiccuped before continuing as the surge grounded safely without knocking the power out. 

"Uh-oh," Bruce murmured.

"Gary, I think you're dry, and I think Neal's dried off too." Alan moved his hand over Neal's hair. "Kev, yours is still a little wet; I'm not sure what to do there, since we're about to overload the generator."

"I think it'll be okay; it's better than it was." Kevin helped Bruce put the dryer aside after turning it off and climbed back on the bed next to Gary. 

Alan climbed on where Kevin had been, and motioned for Bruce to come in closer. They all braced for the possibility of carrying out their care in the dark if the next gust of wind or lightening strike took the power with it.

"Neal, we're gonna sit you up, okay? We're gonna sit you up and try and get your blood flow back up." With Bruce's help, Alan sat Neal up, and everyone leaned in to surround him.

"Gary, are you okay?" asked Kevin.

Gary snuffled and nodded, wiping his eyes and nose on his sweater-sleeve, provoking an eye-roll, grimace, and near laugh from everyone else.

Thunder rattled outside and there was a snap as a tree branch broke. Neal flinched and shook harder, and Bruce began soothing him before he could thrash again.

"It's okay, Neal. We gotcha."

"We got each other," Gary murmured as Kevin tried to wrap his skinny arms around both him and Neal.

"It's a little warmer like this," noted Alan. "Not bad, all considered.

"See, this is what we gotta do," Kevin took deep breaths and spoke in a forced calm tone as if he were trying to reassure himself out of a panic just as much as everyone else. "Until we can get out of here, we gotta stick together and keep each other warm, okay?"

The words Bruce heard every night onstage.

"And we'll just keep riding the storm out until it's either done or it rides out of here first," Gary continued.

"Ooh!" Even with the fear of the situation before them, Kevin, being the acting type he was, had no trouble projecting his usual over-enthusiasm, especially the type of which he had when he got an idea.

"What is it, Kev?" asked Alan.

"I got an idea!"

"Lyrics?"

"Well, just a phrase, but if -let me think; give me something -or I got a pen here on the table!" Kevin reached for the nightstand as if he were getting a pen in case Neal could sense it. "I'll just write it on my arm for now until I can get some paper."

"A song about being caught in a storm?" asked Gary. "Can it have a really wild ride-out guitar solo to mimic the force of the storm?"

"Can it have a siren t'open it?" murmured Neal.

"Hmmm." Alan mimicked considering it as a new idea, as though he hadn't heard that keyboard siren night after night. "I guess it can."

"I wanna siren on it. Y'know, like'a warning siren? Like a tornado siren back home?"

"We can try it out, and I can help." Gary turned to Kevin. "Have any ideas of how you want it to go?"

"A minor, I think," said Kevin. He looked up in thought, envisioning what he might want to have as a basic sound. "I would put on rhythm, an A minor-G Major-F Major progression under the chorus; tried and true, and I think it would fit. Verse, I'd need to strum out. Riding the storm out... on a full moon night in the Rockies?" 

"How about on the verse, A minor, B minor, C, and back down -just to give it a darker sound to build up?"

Kevin paused to contemplate it.

"I like it, kind of -I have to see words fitting into it."

"'Riding the storm out' is how it starts; Neal fell through the snow and this is gonna sound dark, but 'waiting for the fall out' -it rhymes and I hate to say it, Kev, but we're kind of struggling."

"I guess, and then "on a full moon night in the Rocky Mountain peaks?"

"'On a full moon night in the Rocky Mountain winter' -does that end more evenly?"

"Probably," said Gary. "And then, we're hanging out away from the city, we've been drinking a bit."

"Well, _you_ have tonight," Kevin said darkly.

"Hush! I'm just thinking we can use that in the verse. Maybe we should figure out the chorus though-"

"It's mostly just 'ridin the storm out' over the descent."

"It needs a build. We can only see the moon outside; we got everything here though that we need-"

"-and maybe a little more excitement than we need-" Kevin gasped as thunder shook the whole house and the lights went out. "Great."

Alan giggled in the dark.

"You all aren't missing any excitement in town up here," he quipped.

Bruce shook his head and snaked a hand out to the nightstand in the dark for the flashlight, but right as he found it, the lights came back on. "And we sure aren't either."

"That's it," said Gary. 'I'm not missing a thing; watching the full moon crossing the range' -it works because it's all we can see through the clouds."

Alan chimed in. "And it is a big pie-plate full moon!"

"Some mode of D to A minor on that pre-chorus, I think might go well with..." Gary trailed off, holding up his left hand and forming chords. Kevin's left hand went up to match it, and they sang the root notes of the chords, then shifted to sing the chorus.

Kevin was slower on the pre-chorus, taking a steeper descent on the notes than Mike had, but not adding in the extra notes and flare as he would live. It was slow and uncertain sounding for him, working well to reimagine singing it for the first time.

"Ridin' the storm out," sang Gary and Kevin together.

As in the studio version, Alan lightly sang a descending high note behind each repetition.

"Ridin' the storm out... Ridin' the-"

"Guys, look!" hissed Alan, now distracted from singing.

Neal was no longer shaking. He took slow, steady breaths as one did in deep sleep.

Slow and gentle, they lay him down on the bed again, and Alan placed his hand over his chest. When he couldn't feel anything there, he put fingers to Neal's wrist and began counting again.

"He's around sixty-five beats per minute," said Alan finally. That's a little high in normal range for sleep, but it's low normal range for resting while awake, and it's safe enough. He's not pounding out of his chest anymore either. And he's asleep, or he'd have probably reacted to see what I was just doing."

All of them sighed with relief. It seemed the whole world did with them, as a gust of wind smacked a tree branch against the house.

"Gary?" Kevin paused and swallowed. "Did it really upset you that much when I left?"

"Kevin, I loved it when Mike was here. He was a great friend, calm guy to hang out with; I still think he's great. But you, you're like my little brother. I don't like arguing with you, and right before you left, it... well, you know how it got rough. There were reasons why we had to -and none of them that I wanted-"

"Alright, Gary. Stop," warned Alan, sensing another impending meltdown, "you've already done this tonight! You're too wound up to go any further on that. No more!"

"-I'm just glad you came back."

"I'm glad you all _took_ me back."

Gary's mouth finally hitched up in a half laugh.

"Yeah, Kevin, we're glad you're back with us, but that doesn't mean you aren't still a big priss."

Alan chortled out loud, and soon Kevin and Bruce were laughing too.

"It's just who I am, I guess."

"Don't deny it." Gary grinned tearfully. His eyes held a more sober light in them. Tired, grounded in reality rather than numbed, but genuine with every word he spoke.

"Hey, they say there's a diva in every group who's more high-maintenance than everyone else. Guess you're it, Kevin." Bruce shrugged and cracked up.

Kevin sprang a facetious grin and looked right at Gary. "And I wonder who it was when I wasn't here. Because don't tell me it was Neal!"

"It's possible." Gary mocked an innocent expression.

Bruce clapped his hands down -one on Kevin's shoulder, and one on Gary's. "Aw man, I can already tell we're gonna have trouble with you two!"

A perfectly timed lightening strike flashed in the windows, and thunder boomed ominously as Bruce spoke.

"No, Bruce-ster!" Alan's eyes bugged out. "Don't encourage it!"

"I'm messing!"

"We'll be fine. I hope." Gary nestled in against Neal again, and everyone settled back down on the bed, deciding quietly how they would take turns each hour on which two would stay up to watch over Neal while the other two napped. Deciding Bruce had been up since the whole thing started, and Alan had driven further, they got a chance for shut-eye first, dragging in extra pillows and blankets from Bruce's room to set up on the floor by the bed while Kevin and Gary watched Neal.

After an hour, as they were switching out, a howling gust of wind sent the lights flickering. Some stayed on, but the alarm clock's digits went blank, and the lights that did stay on seemed dimmed and weak.

"Looks like one of the power lines outside just broke, but we still got the others." Bruce pulled the flashlight out from the nightstand drawer. "It's fine though, we got some light and we got each other, and I think we'll be alright with this until someone can come out and fix it tomorrow."

It was three shifts later, just as the storm had settled to light rain and the sky took a hint of light behind the clouds, that Neal began waking up out of shock.

Kevin reached out and overzealously slapped Alan and Bruce awake.

"Ouch," moaned Bruce, crawling up next to Gary beside Neal.

He whimpered, reaching his arms sluggishly out from under the blankets -moving as if sore from the prolonged tremors -to rub at his fluttering eyelids.

"Guys, don't crowd around too tight and scare him," warned Bruce as Kevin leaned in practically on top of Neal. Kevin shifted back just as he finally connected his sight with his surroundings.

"Oh, God..." Neal gasped, closing his eyes and squeezing them tight.

"What's going on, Neal?" Bruce kept his tone calm and gentle.

"All that last night. It was real, wasn't it?"

"I'm afraid so."

"You gave us the fright of our lives too," Kevin added. "Nothing like that's ever happened to one of us, and I haven't ever seen anything like-"

"Kevin!" Alan warned in a big, husky whisper.

Still with eyes closed, Neal's expression twisted with anguish.

"Uh-oh." Bruce put his hand on his shoulder.

"I don't know _what_ the hell that was." 

"I know you didn't. None of us did," murmured Bruce. "Are you feeling any better now?"

A shine appeared along the line of Neal's eyelashes. Alan frowned and wiped his fingertip gently along them, making it disappear.

"Physically, I feel better, but I'm not right."

"We can't expect you to be right at every minute." Kevin placed his hands on the bedside. "And with the fast turnaround you got, right now especially-"

"I need to do something. Go somewhere, away from all this -break this cycle -I don't know..." Neal choked up. "All I know is I _can't_ do _that_ again."

"If we need to put things on hold for a little while, we will." Gary piped up so fast that even Kevin couldn't cut in.

Neal opened bloodshot, exhausted eyes to them. So broken, yet full of dedication. "But we've got so much to do, and we're on the line of-"

"No, you need to stop and do what you think you need to do to take care of yourself if I can't get you what you need here," Bruce insisted. "Your tracks can wait until you're ready."

Kevin nodded. "I'll work some things out in the piano rhythmically that can hold it together, and you can add to it on the rest as you see fit."

"You just focus on getting better, and then you can get back." Alan shook his head. "We'd rather you do what you need to take care of this than to go through any of that again."

"We'll have a place for you. I promise, Neal." Gary put his hand firmly on Neal's as if to pledge it to him, and Neal curled his small but powerful hand around Gary's long and callused fingers.

"You let me back in, so it's only fair we do."

Alan groaned. "Kevin!"

This time, Neal managed a smirk through the pain.

"That's two storms now we've almost lost you in, Neal; you can't keep doing that to us," Alan scolded playfully.

Bruce raised his eyebrows. "Did he really fall through the snow in Colorado?"

"I wasn't that far under-"

"You were on your back and over a foot under the surface, struggling to right yourself for five minutes before Gary and I got out there with a broom handle to pull you up with, and Gregg had us holding a rope as we went out there so he could pull us up if we went down -yes you were-!"

"Kevin!"

"You missed out in a pretty interesting night," Neal moaned, sitting up and blinking as he reoriented himself with his surroundings and began shedding the blankets he was piled in. "It was a wild storm."

"Well, I think I made up for it plenty last night, in more than one way!"

This time everyone cracked up. Even Neal's mouth hitched up in his characteristic stiff smirk, and he blushed a hint of pink.

"I still have to plug that phone back in and call to report the power line. We still have a ways to go before we're done with it," Bruce continued, looking to his watch in the dim light through the window. "But maybe we should all get some more sleep first. Last time I checked, we don't really do 7:00 in the morning here."

"Oh, hell no." Gary moaned. "No wonder my head still hurts."

"Lie down and sleep it off." Kevin playfully shoved him down, to the amusement of Bruce, Alan, and Neal.

"Yeah, and Kev, you're in rare form too. I think you need another nap."

"Alan!" scolded Bruce, giving the drummer a taste of his own medicine and provoking snickering from the floor where Gary and Kevin were camped out. "I think we can all settle in now; we don't really need to do shifts now that we know we're past the worst."

"Okay!" Alan flashed a thumbs up and settled on the floor on the other side of the bed.

"You alright if I check out to my room for a bit, Neal?" Bruce asked once Gary, Alan, and Kevin had settled in.

"Yeah, it's your house -go spend whatever time wherever you want." Neal shrugged with his hands extended at his sides.

Bruce gave a tired smile between Neal, Kevin and Gary at peace sleeping next to each other on the floor, and turned for the hallway.

"And Bruce-ster?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks. Thanks for riding it out with me last night."

**Author's Note:**

> Notes about the song facts:  
> -Bruce was not in REO when the song was written. Gregg Philbin was bass player when the storm that inspired Gary Richrath to write the song trapped REO Mk. 2 in a Colorado bar lodge.  
> -Kevin Cronin originally sang the studio version, but left the band during the writing of the album. The vocals were re-recorded by Mike Murphy and released as the official studio version.  
> -In the late 70s once Kevin was back in the band and Bruce had taken over on bass, they recorded a live version that is a lot more popular on the radio and how most know the song. Kevin always introduces it by "stick together and keep each other warm", hence the scene in this fic where he, Gary, and Alan reenact the original writing of the song in the snowstorm to take Neal back in his trance to a safer time. Bruce was not there, but he's experiencing it here, making it an equally important song to all of them by this second storm in the wake of Neal's breakdown.


End file.
